James Gurney

This daily weblog by Dinotopia creator James Gurney is for illustrators, plein-air painters, sketchers, comic artists, animators, art students, and writers. You'll find practical studio tips, insights into the making of the Dinotopia books, and first-hand reports from art schools and museums.

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Saturday, March 21, 2009

No one says you have to draw exactly what you see when you’re making studies on location. I was sitting in a museum drawing cars and trains, and I wondered what they would look life if they reared up on their hind wheels or inflated with a big breath of air.

Being on location lets you see the objects in three dimensions, walk around them, peer under them. That’s the first step to understanding their forms so that you can transform them any way you want.

A tip: try a little thumbnail sketch first before you leap into a larger drawing.

19 comments:

A little random, but the train in the upper right reminded me of the animated train in the opening to "Soul Train." In a way, they were applying a lower scale version of squash and stretch in the animation of the dancing train.

Oooo these are GREAT! I always have issues drawing industrial objects, things like cars and get board with all the angles, this would be a great way to keep it more fresh and interesting. Thanks for the idea! :D

James, this is a great use of one of the animation principles-simply named called "Squash and Stretch." The distortions give the illusion of life and motion to an inanimate bunch of charcoal on paper-always amazing to me.

Thanks for your great sketches and explorations. Your eagerness to be an eternal learner is inspiring.

All illustrators, animators, gallery artists can benefit from the exercise you suggested. When my painting/drawings get stale doing charicatures like these always helps loosen up again.

Hi, Gang,that sketchpad is just a bunch of brown kraft paper...the cheap stuff they use for wrapping fish. I like it because it doesn't make me nervous. I had the guys at Kinkos make a sketchbook out of it.

The white is a blob of white gouache that I used with a brush and a film can filled with water. The darks are marker, which have faded a bit since I did the drawing. Thanks for the encouragement!

Ah. I love kraft paper. You don't have to be precious about it and it's a great surface to work on. And these days, now that pretty much everything gets scanned and goes digital right away, I'm not hoity toity about permanence, so I don't feel guilty using it (or nice rough newsprint).

I see everyone enjoyed these sketches. All of them remind me of the old school animation of the nine old men, perhaps because they're all vintage vehicles, done on seemingly vintage paper. It's a great exercise, and makes me want to read some of my old Bill Peet books. :)